Antilles

When the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a title Columbus finagled from the Spanish throne, weighed anchor for his 1492 voyage, the word Antilles already existed as a semi-mythological landmass or archipelago somewhere between the Canary Islands and India. It was up to Columbus to find it. Find it he did, and he became revered, as James Joyce suggested, because he was the last man to discover America.

The Antilles form the border between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, although the west end of Cuba and Yucatan divide the Caribbean from the Gulf of Mexico. That means the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, while part of the West Indies, are not part of the Antilles and neither island group is in the Caribbean.

Geographers divide the Antilles into the Major Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The Major Antilles are Cuba, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico—all geologically made up from continental rock. The Lesser Antilles—younger volcanic and coral islands—are divided into the Leeward Islands (from the Virgin Islands to Guadeloupe), Windward Islands (Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago), and Leeward Antilles (Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire).

A lot of other small islands make up the Antilles, as most recognizably named islands have their own satellite islands. So many that it reminds me of a very old and stale joke, to which I remember only the punch line. The gist of it is three people are quizzed, in the manner of a competition, about the Titanic’s demise. The first contestant is asked: On what date did the Titanic sink? The answer was “15 April 1912.” The host acknowledged the correct answer and moved on to the second participant: How many died? The answer was “more than 1500.” The third contestant was feeling pretty secure until he heard the final question: Name them.

Geographically, the Caribbean Islands and Central America are part of North America. Because of Latin American ties to many of the islands and countries, there are those that include Central America and some Caribbean islands as part of South America. None of the islands is especially prosperous except for Trinidad (seven miles from South America with a population of 1.36 million), which has the third largest economy per capita in North America after the US and Canada. Trinidad has petroleum, the second largest Carnival after Rio, two Nobel prizewinners, two Miss Universe winners, and probably more KFC franchises per capita than anywhere in the world. It also has a pretty okay bookseller, Nigel Khan. It’s no slouch either in musical influence. While Jamaica is often seen as the center of Caribbean music, the steelpan, developed in Trinidad is reputed to be the only acoustic instrument invented in the twentieth century—from WWII-surplus 55-gallon drums. Trinidad is also the home of calypso and soca and their many derivatives.